In many automobile maintenance and repair shops, especially body shops where repairs to damaged auto bodies are made, it is often desirable or necessary to remove and/or replace the vehicle bumpers. Part of the installation process for installing the bumpers typically requires a series of plastic blind rivets to be set to attach the bumper inside the vehicle's wheel wells. Usually, this step requires the vehicle to be place on jacks and lifted so that the tires may be removed to allow sufficient work space to be made available to permit body shop personnel to operate the rivet setting tool inside the wheel well without access being prevented by the presence of the tire. The disadvantage of this procedure is that the extra steps of jacking the vehicle, removing the tires and then reinstalling the tires and lowering the vehicle after the bumper is installed is all fairly time consuming. The result is that extra labor time is required to perform the bumper installation and the need to use the shop's repair bay which space is always at a premium in a repair shop.
While there are a number of different hand operated plastic blind rivet setting tools on the market, all are sufficiently bulky in design that they cannot be fit into the maximum several inch space between the tire and the surrounding wheel well, thus requiring the tire's removal to carry out the installation process. The design constraints are further complicated by the fact that blind rivets made of plastic require a longer pull stroke to set the rivet as opposed to comparable blind rivets made of metal materials such as steel or aluminum. One example of a hand operated plastic blind rivet setting tool is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,520,648 to Gregory. While this particular tool's design provides access to narrow spaces so long as the nose of the tool can be oriented along the direction of the restriction, this is not possible when setting rivets in the space between the tire and wheel well. Another example is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,115,900 to Cerulo et al. This tool exhibits a more bulky design required by the compound link mechanism used to provide a variable mechanical advantage for different applications.
The present invention provides an improved rivet setting tool designed to have a long and slender profile for smoothly and quickly setting plastic blind rivets into the relatively tight access space of a conventional passenger vehicle's wheel well without having to remove the tire.